


A Moment in Time

by Junaril, Nitheliniel



Series: Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Doriath, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, a quiet moment, musings on love and the world, world views
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 09:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20080012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junaril/pseuds/Junaril, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitheliniel/pseuds/Nitheliniel
Summary: It has been a year since Beren crossed into Doriath – desperate and lonely after he lost all that hitherto had been his life. Beneath branch and bow he heals, aided by the vision of dancing feet and hair like shadow and a voice as sweet as a nightingale’s.It has been many month since a man stumbled into Lúthien’s dancing and into her heart, a symbol of the world outside the safety of her home. She takes him by the hand and guides him through his grieve and into her world.Beren’s and Lúthien’s relationship develops gently from mutual attraction to mutual understanding in an enchanted environment seemingly outside time and space. Today, they spend a last quiet moment, drawn out over a day, before time catches up with them and they face the King.





	A Moment in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Junaril](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junaril/gifts).

> Note 1: This story is the result of a collaboration with [junaril](https://junaril.tumblr.com/) in the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2019 and her art prompt “And They Never Wanted to Leave”. Thank you for the great, constructive, and fun collaboration and for the exchange of headcanons on Beren and Luthien. I head a wonderful time "talking" to you and writing this.
> 
> Note 2: junaril's wonderful art that inspired this fic can be accessed via the links right at the beginning of the story, or at the appropriate places towards the end of the story.
> 
> Note 2: Many thanks to [Cherepashka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka) for the wonderful beta-work and the encouraging comments.  


[ _ https://imgur.com/K8YLdKh _ ](https://imgur.com/K8YLdKh)

[ _ https://imgur.com/ssSATJd _ ](https://imgur.com/ssSATJd)

  
  
_“Wake!”_  
  
He blinked himself into a day without colours. Only the significant difference between the dark of night and the blind light he woke into indicated that morning had indeed broken – but how much time had passed since then, he was at a loss to tell. He was a habitual early riser from necessity and thus he hoped – if his senses had not finally succumbed to his enchanted surroundings – that the day was still young.  
  
Beren sat up and rubbed the last of the sleep from his eyes. It was a fine line, he thought during a quick breakfast, between enchanted and enchanting – though in truth he ought to find an answer to the more pressing question concerning the time of day before dwelling on such philosophical problems. He gathered his few belongings and took special care packing the blanket he had slept beneath - a silky wonder, shimmering in blues and greens, covered in feathers out of silver stitching. When he was done he looked around him once more and put it down to not long after sunrise. The early morning mists wavered thickly through the trees, white strands meandering from trunk to trunk, reminding him of the play of fair-haired sighthounds. They had once owned a pack, when times had been better: long-legged, long-haired hunters of the wind – ethereal in hunting, earthly in killing.  
  
_“Come!”_  
  
He had not taken note of the voice before. Now that he did, he still could not tell from what direction it called or whether its calls were audible at all. Like so many things in this alien realm the voice felt more substantial than the world outside. Somewhat heavier, with a life of its own, more than simply sound on air. Yet the caller remained unseen and the voice without a physical form. But he recognised its source – would indeed recognise it anywhere.  
  
His mother’s voice Beren could only dimly remember. He thought it had been sweet and warm. It might have been an actual remembrance from childhood days. Or it might be what, as a grown up, he wished his mother's voice to have been.  
  
His father's voice he recalled easily. It was more recent in his memory. Barahir had not been a man of many words, but of those he spoke he had made good use. His voice had told bedtime stories as well as called an army to war. Beren wished it could have ended thus: ringing loud over a field of battle or calling to arms at the sight of the enemy. If it had done the latter, he would never know. There had been no cry of victory and he feared the voice might have died mute.  
  
_“Don’t worry. Come!”_  
  
Then there was this voice with the physical pull he could not resist. He got to his feet and did as bidden.  
  
\---  
  
“You were deep asleep.”  
  
Lúthien waited for him on top of a small hill. He looked at her now, considering his answer.  
  
“Deep in thought,” he corrected.  
  
“I see. I would I could know your thoughts, since they delay you so. But that may be too forward a wish?”  
  
She had this habit of veiling a statement in a question, especially when she wished it not to be true.  
  
“Not too forward, but my thoughts are often dark.”  
  
She was a light in his darkness which he wished not to blemish.  
  
Lúthien frowned, obviously trying to discern the meaning behind his words. She did not like to be protected and resented his tendency to do so. Beren, though, could not help it. She led a guarded life and, if he had any say in it, it would remain that way. It was one of her many allurements: her peculiar mixture of deep knowledge about the making and the workings of the world combined with her naïveté as to current events. She knew of the war and of the great battles, but only by hearsay – words from spies and messengers and the odd traveler to Thingol’s realm. Maybe the birds she so intently listened to sometimes sang of death and demise, but he doubted it. Most of them would not pass Doriath’s borders during their brief lives, just like the majority of its Elvish inhabitants during their long ones.  
  
Lúthien loved beauty for beauty’s sake. She appreciated the singing birds for their music, the whispering wind for its cooling breeze, the shining sun for its warming rays. Beren had learned to appreciate these things for their practical benefits. The song of birds signified the absence of enemies, the wind carried sound from far away, the sun weakened the Dark Enemy's minions.  
  
When he had first encountered Lúthien – well, stumbled upon her – the whole situation had struck him as entirely odd: not for the setting of a woman dancing to a musician’s playing, but for the absolute absence of fear. Lúthien and Daeron had enjoyed themselves and each other’s company in the subconscious knowledge that nothing of evil could touch them on this beautiful summer’s day among the hemlocks. Lúthien’s characteristic unchecked laughter sprang from the same source. As did her wild dancing. She did not sing, laugh, or dance to forget the present, but to enjoy it to the fullest.  
  
She loved life and Beren loved and envied her for loving it. For the first time in his grown-up life he could cherish a moment for its own sake – just because it was beautiful. Just found, he could not lose that. This pause for breathing was too precious to be tarnished. It needed to be protected.  
  
A cool fingertip bumped his nose and startled him into the present. Lúthien still looked at him quizzically, but already amusement was twinkling in the corner of her eyes, and then she laughed.  
  
“I wanted to bring you here for a long time, but only today did the weather permit it. It is a favourite place of my mother’s, so we will not be disturbed. But without the mist, the top is easily discernible from below and the eyes of the Marchwardens are necessarily sharp.”  
  
Over the short time of their acquaintance she had brought him to many such places: spots favoured by her mother or herself. Few others dared to go there unaccompanied. According to Lúthien, even her father, the King, asked permission. For the two of them, that meant they could meet without fear of prying eyes. The eventual meeting with King Thingol and Queen Melian was inevitable, but they had put it off more than once. Until then, they kept to remote places, lest they should be discovered and their time alone be cut short.  
  
Initially, Beren had feared they would not escape Queen Melian’s gaze, as her power over the land seemed omnipresent, but Lúthien had only laughed at his fears.  
  
“Of course my mother knows of your presence.”  
  
He had been too shocked to reply, so she had continued.  
  
“Doubtless, she also knows that we are meeting.”  
  
She had winked at him, then pecked his lips in a quick kiss – apparently completely unconcerned.  
  
“Maybe even that we are kissing.”  
  
“How?” he had managed to ask, and it had taken all his self-control to not wipe his lips with his hands. If she was right, it would be a fruitless gesture, and rude on top of that.  
  
Lúthien had simply pointed to the birds and the trees. He had felt watched for days afterwards. His nights had been short of sleep and he had been over-aware of all his actions – had indeed watched his own steps as minutely as he felt the winged spies would.  
  
Then, on a friendly morning with a smiling sun, he had finally realised that, though he had lived in the forest for so long weeks had turned into months, something bad was yet to happen to him. After Lúthien’s carefree allusion to her mother’s powers, Beren had been sure that anytime now he would be challenged by wild animals. Flocks of birds had seemed likely to attack and he had not put it past the trees to lash out at him or trip him. The stories were numerous among even the House of Barahir about travelers in Elvish lands who never found their way home. But he was willing to admit that, while many spoke of sinister motives, a similar number of stories told of travelers who simply did not wish to leave. He could believe that. Instead of being attacked, he found himself welcomed. He would wake and find nuts and dried berries for breakfast. When he lay down, the song of birds would change to a lullaby. A nightingale sang more often than he had heard its call ever before in his life.  
  
\---  
  
“Well?”  
  
Surprised by the impatience in her voice, he finally made an attempt to take in their surroundings.  
  
Beren had yet to see Menegroth, her home, but he could not believe it to be more magnificent than the group of trees gathered on the hill-top, almost defying description: They were tall, towering above the rest of the forest not only because they rooted on higher ground. They stood close together, their silver trunks winding about each other, rendering it near impossible to distinguish one tree from the other; branches were few and sparse and thus the bark resembled smooth hide. Though standing together, as a group they stood alone. Many steps of free ground separated them from the surrounding forest – free ground still shrouded in mist – explaining Lúthien’s reference to the weather.  
  
“I believe I may still be dreaming,” he stated, close to the truth of his thoughts, and he was relieved when his answer made her smile once more. Taking his hand into hers, she led him towards the trees in the center of the hill. Once they got closer, he noticed that the trunks were not so much grouped together, but around a central staircase grown from the branches the trees lacked on the outside.  
  
He wanted to ask how such a thing was possible, even with Elven magic, but he was given little time to marvel.  
  
“Maybe the sun will wake you. Come, let us find the light.”  
  
After a while, Beren thought the sun would have little trouble waking him after the climb had already driven sleep from his mind and his limbs. Nimble as a squirrel, Lúthien ascended before him, while he followed with increasingly heavy steps and labouring breaths. The natural steps grew at irregular intervals, and some of the branches were thick and sturdy while others were thin and springy – to the point where he doubted they would carry his weight. Closer to the top, they grew less and less apart until eventually he had to squeeze his broader shoulders in between to get through. Leaves were in his face all the time. He spat and cursed silently – and then they parted, and he hoisted himself onto a platform of interwoven branches and forgot to catch the breath he had only a moment before fought for.  
  
They looked out over the mist-covered forest: a sea of white, dotted with small islands of green in between. Here and there the peaks of tall conifers pierced through the milky cover like dark and lonely sentinels. Over it all presided a white sun.  
  
It was a spectacular sight, even though Beren was familiar with similar views. Bands of Orcs would often push into Dorthonion, or Taur-nu-Fuin as the land had come to be known, and the remaining Edain had repelled them if possible and pursued them into the hills that faded into Ard-Galen to the north. But lately, more often than not the men had been the ones on the retreat, and when even the name-giving pines could not hide them sufficiently, they had withdrawn (fled, some would say, but Beren could not accept that) into the steep slopes and cracks of the mountains to the south. Never far, never high up – not one had ever ventured to the other side before Beren had been forced to. But they had climbed beyond the tree line and beneath them their home had still looked peaceful.  
  
In contrast, Lúthien’s home was peaceful.  
  
“What is this place?” he finally asked, when his thoughts and his breath had caught up with his words.  
  
“My mother’s favourite outlook over the forest. We have more of these closer to the borders. Those are used by the Marchwardens and many are linked with each other by paths running through the trees. You would not see them from below, even if you knew them to be there.  
  
“But this place is reserved to the Queen. By her bidding, the trees have grown this tall. She has sung their roots to dig deep and their trunks to grow strong. Their branches hold on to each other so they do not stand alone in harsh weather.”  
  
Even so, he could still feel the trees move beneath him. Today, the motion was not more than a gentle swaying in what little breeze the morning offered, and Lúthien, like a part of the trees, swayed with it. Beren had learned to watch and imitate her and found life in the forest easier for it. Thus, when he stopped fighting for balance, he suddenly found it. He could keep his gaze steady, while his body and especially his legs moved with the trees.  
  
Like a chicken, he thought and laughed.  
  
Lúthien, as always, answered a genuine laugh with one of her own.  
  
“Does it have a name?”  
  
He thought this an easy question, since in his experience all prominent places were named, but she took a while to answer.  
  
“Yes. Several, in fact. Places tend to have more than one name. Names that describe them, names that define them, names in different languages. To the trees it is ‘the place where they welcome sun, wind, and rain together with the mighty one who served the bringer of life’. Trees are very specific in their naming, as names form part of their memory.”  
  
To Lúthien there was nothing odd about talking trees, and according to her they shared a communal memory reaching back into a time when even the Eldar had not yet woken. The Elves had brought them speech in which to converse with them, but even today the trees struggled to convey what they felt to be true in words they found too limiting as to express their meaning. She had told him once that talking to a tree took all the patience even Elves could muster.  
  
“My family calls it ‘the Nest’, though its common name is ‘the Queen’s Eyrie’ or just ‘the Eyrie’.” Lúthien removed her hand from his and spread her arms wide. “I like the name. It makes me feel like I only have to spread my wings and jump and the wind will carry me away.”  
  
Beren suppressed the urge to take hold of her again, lest she indeed take off and soar towards the sun. He had no trouble picturing her as the bird he had named her for – and nightingales, he suddenly remembered, were birds of passage.  
  
But spring was only just turning into summer. She would not leave him yet.  
  
Once Beren let go of the need to root Lúthien to the tree by looking at her, his gaze wandered south – over tree-covered miles and two hidden rivers until he thought he might just make out the thin grey line of the Andram on the horizon. Or maybe he only wished to see them. Still, he turned towards the south-west, where he knew from hearsay and from Lúthien’s confirmation that another hidden Elven-realm lay beneath the mountains. Nargothrond – a name as solid as the stone from which it was hewn, and legendary to his family. Something drew him there – some fate more adamant, he feared, than the green stone on the ring on his right hand.  
  
Lúthien’s eyes had not followed his but travelled north. When she spoke, it seemed her thoughts had gone that way as well.  
  
“I cannot fault the North for holding such peril. It brought me you!”  
  
Beren could fault the North with many things, but he recognised the soundness of her logic and could adjust her meaning to suit him better.  
  
“I would rather thank the South for sheltering me and being your home.”   
  
Lúthien turned to face him and used her momentum to make a vaguely encompassing gesture at what lay behind him. The river Esgalduin and the forest of Region – Beren silently named the landmarks she had taught him – followed by the river Aros as border to the realm, the Andram, another forest Lúthien had called Taur-im-Duinath, with the Bay of Balar to the West and Ossiriand to the East. From maps she had scratched into the soft forest earth he knew that indeed, there was still a lot of "south" left to Beleriand.  
  
“This is hardly the south, Beren,” she admonished with words he expected but would not accept.  
  
“It is to me, Tinúviel. It is to the Elves of Hithlum and the Men of Dor-Lómin, it is south even to the sons of Féanor. North is… north is…” He wavered and fell silent, unable to name what the north meant to him.  
  
“North lie Thangorodrim and Angband,” Lúthien stated matter-of-factly, still dwelling on geography as only someone could who had no personal experience with it. Still, as she spoke she seemed to catch something of his mixed feelings, and her face betrayed the sudden realisation of having said something wrong.  
  
“I…”  
  
But he would not let her finish. Instead, following a sudden urge to comfort and be comforted, he snaked his arms around her slim waist and drew her close, his face burying easily in her shoulder. A strand of her shimmering black hair gently brushed his cheek, and for a moment he simply stood there and cherished the fact that he was no longer alone. Lúthien’s arms softly returned the embrace and he felt warm lips press a kiss to his temple.  
  
When he finally found words, they came out muffled.  
  
“Yes, North is the home of the Enemy, but parts of it were once home to me too!” - How was it possible to at once be so appalled and so attracted by a direction of the wind?  
  
She pulled him closer then, and her kisses on his forehead started to linger until her lips no longer left. Her even breathing drifted warm across his skin – in and out – until his own breath adjusted to hers. Only when she felt him relax did she speak again.  
  
“My home has ever been this forest, Beren, and vast as it is, it is small compared to what lies beyond. If I wish to fly, it is not only to travel – though one day I wish to do that – but to play a part in the tale of the free people of Beleriand. No, do not speak yet. Hear me out! It is neither glory I seek, nor victory. I am not so naïve as to think that one elleth can turn the tide, and just like you, I fear there may be no victory over so strong an opponent. On the other hand, who am I, my love? Daughter of Melian the Maia and King Elwë Singollo, and though I am not schooled in what men call the art of war and not skilled with manifest weapons, I am powerful. Do you not think that those who hold power should aid those who might be in need of it?”  
  
Only with this question did she release her hold on him – just enough so his answer could be spoken freely.  
  
“Yes, I believe that. And every day I see the power within you. Still, what would you do, in the face of the Enemy’s armies? Orcs are not swayed by songs of love or the beauty of dancing.”  
  
Beren stepped out of the embrace before she could push him away. His words had sprung from the deep unrest her speech had made him feel, but he knew they had come out wrong by the hurt he felt himself while speaking them. When his eyes turned up to Lúthien’s face, something feral shone out of it – the Maia in her, maybe. There was an answering question in her eyes, apparent as words though she did not speak them: _‘And what good can a single man do, with one knife and one sword?’_ – Or maybe it was his own self-doubt speaking.  
  
“If the last thing either side sees and hears should be beauty, I can find no harm in that,” she said instead, keeping her distance. And when she spoke on, her tone held not the reconciliation he longed for, but was matter-of-fact:  
  
“I can hear people approaching. Maybe we have been seen. Let us leave before the mist no longer covers us!”  
  
But before the leaves swallowed her on her descent, she looked at him once more.  
  
“I will not say, that maybe in this war, too many men with swords have done too many brave deeds. It would disrespect who they are and were and the cause they fight for; and I believe we shall not agree in this matter. But one thing I must say: There is more to the North than an enemy and a home lost. Even more than the vain promise of significance for an Elven princess – there is a future for us up north, Beren. I cannot see what it is, but I know that it is there. It shall be enough for me to strive for.”  
  
\---  
  
When Beren reached solid ground, Lúthien had already started for the next line of trees, the thinning mist clinging to her like shrouds of a white gown. He halted briefly, listening for what had alerted her, and after a moment was able to hear voices in the forest, calling out:  
  
“Who goes there?” the closest demanded to know.  
  
“Lúthien,” she answered in a clear voice, beckoning him to make for the forest swiftly. He fought the urge to step back into cover and remain still, instead following her silent instruction, trusting her to know best.  
  
“And who is with you, my lady?”  
  
“The wind only, Warden, the trees and the spirits of the forest,” she mocked, and while she closed the distance to Beren and overtook him, her voice lingered behind. She winked at him as she passed and he was relieved to see she had regained her smile.  
  
He gave chase with little hope of catching up – his steps the steadfast beat to her fleeting feet.  
  
\---  
  
Whether they truly lost their pursuers or whether the guards put their trust in their princess’ judgement, they were alone in the forest once more when Lúthien finally slowed to a walk. She let him catch up with her and they walked side by side for a while, silent in their own thoughts, but close again.  
  
“Tinúviel,” Beren finally spoke, “bring me where I saw you first. Please!”  
  
The almost-encounter with the Marchwardens had left him shaken; their peace, he felt, was soon to be broken. Though the guardians of the realm had let them go, they would surely report the presence of an alien person back to the King’s hall. Soon they would search for him and, though sure of his skills in forestry, he was not so naïve as to believe he could outwit them. This was their forest, not his, and they were Elves.  
  
Lúthien answered his request with a sombre nod and once again took him by the hand. Once he had felt patronised by the gesture, as if she doubted his ability to find his way on his own. But he knew no pride beyond foolishness, and after he once had lost her lead because she had miscalculated her speed and his ability to follow, he had conceded being guided. Soon he felt his feet to be lighter when Lúthien held his hand.  
  
Those had been the beginnings of their days together. Since then he had also learned Lúthien’s true motive for taking hold of him so often.  
  
“Look about you, Beren,” she had said and whirled around – arms wide spread. When she had completed the turn, she had made sure to grasp both his hands in hers. Her eyes also had tried to hold him in place by the intensity of their gaze. “This is the home I know and the world I live in. Some days I wonder whether I know every tree by its name. It is a vast forest, but a small world compared to what I know to lie beyond. This was my reality – and then you stumbled into my dance, crying a name I never heard before but knew to be mine, and reality tilted. The Secondborn have not been allowed to cross our borders, and what stories I heard told by travellers or fugitives of my own race seemed like tales of another world. You were little more than a fairy tale, son of Barahir – part of a story of valour and tragedy – and yet your first clumsy steps towards me brought you closer to my heart and soul than many a song of wooing and courtship, though performed with greater skill.”  
  
Assured by her words of her feelings, Beren had easily joined in her laughter – recalling his comical attempt to win her attention and her heart. He did not remember his thoughts that day, and thinking back, he only ever relived the great desperation.  
  
“To touch you, Beren, means I am not dreaming; to hold your hand is the evidence of your presence.”  
  
She had looked at him a bit embarrassed. At a loss for words, he had simply kissed her – and held her close until a long time had passed and even the sun had travelled from the South deep into the West.  
  
He thought now of the stories of her parents’ first encounter – how they had met beneath a sky filled only with stars and woken to a changed world. He had only spent a year with Lúthien on his mind and a few months in her presence, but already he felt unsure as to whether time passed with the same speed within and without the borders of Doriath.  
  
He told her then what he had thought upon waking: that the magical forest had enchanted him. Lúthien scrunched her nose in thought – an expression he found infinitely more endearing then creasing one’s forehead – and took not near long enough to answer.  
  
“Why do you worry? What you call magic is the life of this forest. It is old and as yet untouched by evil, as few other forests in Beleriand are. What you call a strange power is the presence of beings beyond your ken. Such as my mother. Such as myself.”  
  
Here she smiled at him – a smile hinting at secrets from another time and another world.  
  
“Of what we do not know, we are either afraid or intrigued. I am glad you chose to be intrigued – or enchanted, as you put it. I am glad you find me enchanting rather than terrifying.” With these words, her smile turned into a caress. It was an ability he had not encountered in any other person before: She could touch with a gesture, caress with a smile, embrace with her words. He felt her expressions as physically as her voice. “As I am glad I learned not to fear you. Instead, I learned to love you.”  
  
As glad as her words made him, so strange did he find these open admissions of her feelings. She loved him, simple as that, while he still found excuses. He thought himself enchanted, fallen under a spell – her spell, even. As if his feelings sprang from an external source, not from his own heart. Perhaps, he mused, it came from being among men for too long – men who often spoke lovingly of their wives and longingly of the homes that were no more. In the end, it was one man’s love that had led to their company’s gruesome end and his father’s death.  
  
But the same men also spoke of women, even their wives, as near magical beings – able to bend a man’s will with just a sway of their hips.  
  
“Take care in your dealings with women,” he had been counselled, “they twist you around their finger and before you know it, you have fallen in love.”  
  
“There is no escaping them.”  
  
“They enchant you and then they ensnare you and then it is too late.”  
  
He had not given much thought to such talk. At the time his chances of meeting with such a woman, or any woman at all, had seemed slim, so why should he ward against female temptation? He had also failed to understand what, exactly, it would be ‘too late’ for, and as a young men among elders he had not asked. With a sword he counted himself amongst the bravest of men; with his tongue he had so often been tied until he had grown out of the shyness of youth.  
  
But maybe, there had been some truth to his companions’ words after all. Not so much the twist of a finger as streaming black hair and feet quick as silver had captured his attention, and he had fallen – so deeply and irrevocably that all thought of his plight and indeed the knowledge of himself had fled him for a time.  
  
But for that he could hardly lay the blame with Lúthien. She had not even been aware of his presence until, after months of searching, waiting, and pining, he had blundered into her private dancing. Unconsciously, she had soothed his aching heart; unwittingly, she had healed the wounds to his soul. But she had not ensnared him. He had let himself be enchanted. He had let himself fall in love.  
  
Still, to Beren love was invariably paired with longing and a pain so great it held the danger of destruction. He wished not to ward himself against love, but he feared what it might do to him. He had seen the effects of love on a man who had betrayed all that was holy to him, who had chosen the well-being of one person over that of many, and as yet untested he doubted his own actions in a like situation.  
  
A light breeze brought her scent with it. In early summer it still smelled of late spring – of fresh grass and fragrant flowers – but he could detect the gradual shift towards richer fragrances: rich rains and wet earth, sun-kissed moss. Summer in the forest was humid, warm, and sheltered, and Lúthien smelled of all that. Without conscious thought, he drew nearer, seeking the comfort of her scent and the warmth of her body.  
  
Noting, if not his inner struggle, at least his need for proximity, Lúthien halted her stride and turned towards him. Again, her voice touched him more deeply than a physical touch ever could.  
  
“You must not say it, Beren, if yet you cannot. I can see your love in your eyes. I know it to be true by your tender touches, by your sincerity in speaking with me, by the unconscious smile on your lips.”  
  
He knew he loved her then, too. Still, he would not voice the sentiment. Inevitably he would lay down his life for her, but to voice his love would mean he would also lay the world to her feet.   
  
\---  
  
Eventually, they stepped into the meadow where he had first seen her dance. Only when he emerged from the trees into the open did he realise that a full year had passed since that fateful day. The meadow was dressed in the white of his memory, though the flowers were no longer in full bloom. Some time ago he had realised that what he had taken for hemlock was indeed wild chervil – as he would have noticed at the time had his awareness not been focussed elsewhere. Hemlock, though it might have the more poetic name, gave off a fiendish smell, and not even an Elven princess would dare to dance barefoot among the poisonous plants.  
  
Other flowers he could not name now also crept over the meadow in flocks of yellow, and the air hummed with bees collecting their pollen. Beren was glad they had not waited longer before returning here, so that the real place matched his memory though that first impression had long since taken on a dreamlike quality.  
  
“Would you dance for me?” he asked, tentative. Unable to sate his desire to behold her graceful movements in dancing, he asked her to do so often, and often she would even without being asked. Lúthien danced through life where others walked.  
  
She consented now, too, with a graceful little bob of her head, but did not let go of his hand until she had led him to a mossy spot beneath a tree. Patiently she waited until he had laid out his blanket – the one she had given him, the feathers stitched by her own hands – and seated himself and then she knelt before him and kissed him before rising again and moving out into the clearing. For a moment, she looked only at him – wistfully, maybe, or contemplating – but then her eyes closed and, just as it had on top of her world, in the Eyrie, her body began to sway. Though here it did not follow the movement of trees, still it seemed to Beren that something outside of her provided a rhythm he could not perceive – as he had not perceived the piper back then.  
  
Beren watched as how Lúthien’s timid first movements gained fluidity and speed until she flew over the meadow. Her feet kept onlyenough contact to the ground to prevent her from taking to the air in truth, and soon her dancing became a blur of muted colours: ivory skin and ebony hair sparkling in the sunlight, her grey dress swirling through the last wafts of mist that clung to green stems close to the ground and thus had so far avoided the sun, dispersing them fully. He let his hand shift from where it rested on his bent knee into the moss beneath him and found it imbued with tiny drops of what once had been a white blanket of mist. Lúthien’s feet would revel in the touch and spring back from it refreshed and light, ready to dance on for the remainder of the day. With a feeling akin to envy, he slipped out of his own boots and dug his toes deep into the green, marvelling at the feeling of peace and being alive.  
  
Content, he watched Lúthien approach him with a light step and a determined face.  
  
“Please, join me!” she called to him, and when he did not answer immediately – for never before had she made such a request of him, or such a challenge – she repeated her request as a question.  
  
“Will you dance with me? I would have you hold me, and hold you, and enjoy your being close.”  
  
Feeling out of his depth, Beren nevertheless stood and took her offered hand.  
  
“But there is no music,” he objected half-heartedly, knowing it to be a pretext but wondering nonetheless.  
  
“I could sing to you,” she offered, already drawing his hands to her hips and placing hers on his shoulders. “But there is no need.” Her hands slid up his neck, her fingers briefly stroking the round of his ears, before covering his eyes. “Listen!”  
  
Deprived of his sight, he tried to follow the order. But for a long while he heard nothing but their mingling breaths.  
  
“Listen,” Lúthien finally spoke again and this time her face was close enough for the word to tickle his nose. Then she began directing his attention outwards, using her hands to turn his head to follow the direction of her words.  
  
“Remember the brook we crossed. It lies to your left side, warmed by the sun just as you are. Feel the warmth on your cheek, imagine the water to cool it. Let it trickle through your fingers, and let drops join the running water. Listen to how they tinkle like silver bells when touched by sunlight. Touch your wet fingers to your lips and taste the sound, fresh like laughter. Now think of the joy the sun feels when creating such music. The brightly chiming sunbeams wash over you, make your skin tingle and your heart beat faster, and underneath lies the deeper harmony of sunshine. Feel how it lifts you. Spread your arms, float!”  
  
With her words, heaviness seeped from his limbs into the warm ground beneath his bare feet, and only after they had almost completed a full circle did he notice how they moved.  
  
“Your fingers catch the wind – it weaves a cool web between them, it caresses your arms, gently blows in your ears, plays with your hair. There is a gentle undercurrent of rustling tones: the whispering breeze playing with the tree leaves.”  
  
Lúthien had caught his hands in hers again and interlaced her fingers with his. Still, he kept his eyes closed, straining to hear what her words described – this strange blending of images and sounds. Soon, however, he caught his awareness wandering off along with her words, flying from scene to scene, his ears picking up sounds that his waking mind would have told him did not exist. And all the time, their bodies followed.  
  
“Can you hear the low hum of the bees, and the flowers nodding in accord with the song, their sweet fragrance almost a melody of its own? And above all that the light flutter of birds’ wings and their brilliant songs in honour of a beautiful day.”  
  
Here, Lúthien too raised her voice, clear and sweet and altogether lovely. Into her wordless song were woven all the sounds she had just taught him to hear. She grasped him more tightly and whirled him away and they danced over the clearing, their feet alighting on grass and moss, sunlight and air, or even simply on sound. With his eyes still closed, he gave himself over to the music and her lead.  
  
They danced in celebration of the moment, or maybe of eternity, and all the while Beren knew not whether they still touched the ground or flew. When eventually they stopped and he once again looked at her, tears were streaming from her grey eyes, a wild grin on her lips.  
  
“You are a dancer!” she cried in ecstasy, but it was he who threw his arms around her and despite her greater height whirled her through the air. No words found their way past his laughter; Lúthien joined him until they both stood breathless in close embrace.  
  
“You make the world beautiful,” he eventually said, giving voice to his feelings when they had slowly made their way back to the mossy patch of ground beneath the tree. Lúthien settled herself against the trunk, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She held the hems open toward him in invitation. Before he sat back between her legs, he reached out and stroked a wayward lock behind her ear, then gently twined a low-hanging twig to a larger one above so its leaves would no longer fall into her face. His hands lingered on her face for a while afterwards until she nudged his left thigh in a silent request to finally rest.  
  
Seated between her legs, Beren leaned into her, feeling her arms – and with them the blanket – wrap warmly and securely around him like wings.

[ _ https://imgur.com/K8YLdKh _ ](https://imgur.com/K8YLdKh)  
  


“The world is beautiful all on its own,” Lúthien replied when he was settled to her satisfaction. “It does not need my help but I give it willingly if with it you perceive what lies around you in a favourable light.”  
  
With the right words and a dance Lúthien had helped him remember that once he had perceived the world like her: with love and respect, and in the strong belief that it held more good than evil.  
  
“I forgot,” he said, simply, not giving an explanation. None was necessary.  
  
“I know,” her voice whispered against his temple. “But it feels like our perspectives are not so different from each other. Remember, you looked at me and saw beauty and felt love, and wished to approach me when you had every reason to fear discovery and seek to hide instead. You knew of the danger of beauty, knew that it may be more deceptive than ugliness, yet you chose to believe that I am good. As I eventually chose to believe that the man who had crossed into my country without permission meant no harm.”  
  
“I looked at you and saw all I believed gone from my life.”  
  
“And I looked at you and perceived what I had felt missing from mine.”  
  
“Once you dared to look,” he mocked gently, remembering, with a smile now instead of a sting to his heart, how she had fled from his first approach.  
  
“Yes, it took a second glance,” Lúthien conceded, “but you had the advantage of having watched me for longer – while having the disadvantage of not being very clean at the time.”  
  
“It is good, then, that neither of us is deceived by beauty or by ugliness.”  
  
They agreed to that with a kiss; and then, softly, with a song like running water, she sang him to sleep.  
  
Half asleep and maybe dreaming Beren thought he felt Lùthien’s head drop, and the song, so powerful it had lulled its singer to slumber too, faded to a gentle hum before it stopped. 

[ _ https://imgur.com/ssSATJd _ ](https://imgur.com/ssSATJd)  
  


When he woke, many hours later, the sun had sunk beneath the treetops and a nightingale greeted the evening. Lúthien was quietly looking at him, the fingers of one hand stroking over the large ring and the knuckles on his right, oblivious to what they were doing. Gently, Beren disentangled himself from her arms before leaning towards her and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. She met the kiss and deepened it, and his hand found its way to the back of her head.  
  
“Come,” he said, in a brief pause. Lúthien nodded, but otherwise moved not. So he stood, for once taking her hand, pulling her up and towards him. He gathered the blanket and put it around her shoulders, not against the chill of the evening, but in a silent gesture of support, and she thanked him with a self-conscious smile.  
  
The song of the nightingale bid them farewell when they left the meadow behind, both uncertain as to whether they would return. As they walked towards Menegroth in silence, they felt their moment in time coming to an end.  
  
  
  



End file.
